Friday, October 11, 2013

It
is but natural that a native would be more acquainted with the nuances of his or
her own language. Translating the thought into a language that you are familiar
with but not rooted in often results in what I would call ‘grammar casualties.’
In India, English is one such language which is repeatedly raped and mutilated
by the multitudes. Definitely not an offence, but in the global scenario,
especially when we are talking of business documents that are not restricted to
the Indian sub-continent, the least you can expect is a wee bit of basic
knowledge of grammar. Religiously reading an Amish may not necessarily solve
the intrinsic issue of dialectic differences and logical nitty-gritty of
language. The mother or the parent from which respective languages have
perpetrated from plays a vital role in determining common mistakes; those whose
mother-tongues have diverged from Sanskrit can learn or pick up the logic in
languages with a similar origin but English is rooted in a million tongues –
Briton, Anglo-Saxon, Hebrew and even Indian. How many of us have ever bothered
to read the origin of a word in an English dictionary; and if we have, words
like ‘gherao’, that now feature in the Oxford English dictionary may have definitely
caught our attention. A language which is as flexible as
English would be customized and localized – so what initially begins as pidgin English
slowly evolves to a more robust form, like it has in India. Given the Indian
fascination with formality in written language the tone is generally not
colloquial; and the lengthy convoluted sentences send out a loud and clear
message that it is an Indian author.